Cordless telephone system capable of quickly establishing connection during call setup phase

Claim 1

A cordless telephone system having a control channel and a plurality of speech channels, comprising: a base station coupled to a switched telephone network, and a cordless station, said base station including means for scanning said speech channels during a standby mode and detecting idle channels from the scanned channels, means responsive to a call request from the cordless station or an incoming call from the network for transmitting a channel identification signal to the cordless station over said control channel identifying the detected idle channels as possible candidate channels, and means for selecting a first one of the candidate channels and waiting for receipt of an end-of-switching signal from the cordless station, and for selecting a second one of the candidate channels if the end-of-switching signal is not received within a prescribed period of time following the selection of the first candidate channel; and said cordless station including means for receiving said channel identification signal over said control channel, and means for selecting and testing said first candidate channel identified by the received channel identification signal for availability at the site of the cordless station and transmitting said end-of-switching signal over the selected first candidate channel if same is determined as being idle, and for selecting first candidate channel if same is determined as being idle, and for selecting and testing said second candidate channel for availability at said site if the selected first candidate channel is determined as being busy and for transmitting said end-of-switching signal over the selected second candidate channel if same is determined as being idle.